The world of the Takers is one vast prison, and except for a handful of Leavers scattered across the world, the entire human race is now inside that prison.

We're not destroying the world because we're clumsy. We're destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate way, at war with it.

No one species shall make the life of the world its own.' … That's one expression of the law. Here's another: 'The world was not made for any one species.

We need schools to force kids to learn things they have no use for.

From infancy onward, children are the most fantastic learners in the world.

Our schools are much like our prisons: they disappoint us because they only do what they're designed to do, and it annoys us that they don't do something else!

Yes,I'm afraid you're right. Trial and error isn't a bad way to learn how to build an aircraft,but it can be a disastrous way to learn how to build a civilization.